Remember the house?

The cute little low poly one, in last week’s email…

Good. You remember.

I’m obsessed with that house. I don’t know why, I just happen to think it’s the greatest render since the Sistine Chapel.

So I copied it myself.

I tried to get as close as possible to the original. Mine’s not identical, but it’s close. (See yesterday’s issue for the original.)

My biggest challenge was the lighting. In the end I settled for one great big Sun lamp, tinted a gentle yellow color.

But the secret to making that work was the World lighting. I changed the World color to a light pinkish, then turned it down a little bit. It fills the whole scene with a gentle pink lighting, then the Sun adds the shadows.

The World is acting like one gigantic fill light to soften everything up. It really works, too.

I tried some other colors out on this scene. Here’s Winter Mode:

(read this online if you can’t see the images)

And here’s Orange Mode:

Next, I’m going to figure out how to animate this. So everything moves, like it’s all real.

The problem is the trees. I need to subdivide them, so I can animate them, but they still need to look low poly.

Check in next week and see how it’s going.

1 Technique

This one is about stealing.

“But—but Samuel, you said that last week.”

Yes. I said steal from real life, to make your low poly look a little more realistic.

But this is different. This is a technique for practicing, for honing your skills. Try copying the work of other artists.

Find a render you love, then see if you can do it too.

I thought it’d be easy, but it was tough. And I learned a lot from doing it.

If you need a render to copy, try doing this little house. It’s worth the effort, and you get a very pretty final result.

Just don’t forget to credit the original artist. In this case, that’s Mohamed Chahin.

1 Low Poly Pick

These trees by VARRRG caught my eye.

I’m always struggling to come up with a shape when I need a tree.

But this is a bunch of tree ideas all ready-to-go. My favorite one is the one in the bottom-left corner. It has the most character, and the way it has some faces bent inward is a really neat way to add extra detail.

The one on the bottom right is also quite nice—the tiny blobs of leaves are simple and detailed at the same time.

That seems to be the general idea behind low poly. Make it as simple as possible, but in a way that you still get the feeling of detail.

Can't think what to blend?

Try something in space. An asteroid, or a planet with rings, or an astronaut’s helmet, drifting slowly away…

P.S. Your Chapter 3 is coming this Friday…

You see, I’m trying a multi-part fiction—Chapter 1 & 2 are already out. Give ‘em a read if you’re into that kind of thing.

That way, when Chapter 3 comes out, you won’t be too confused :)

Enjoy this newsletter? Please forward to 1 friend. They’ll love it, then later they’ll be like “Man this Blend thing is a great find. Seriously, where did you find this?” And you can just smile back and say “Oh, off in some corner of the internet.” Then they’ll pat you on the back and say “Wow the internet has corners? And you found one?”

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